


three speeches

by sighduck



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 07:19:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9167950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sighduck/pseuds/sighduck
Summary: before - during - after.





	

 

Good evening. Yes, thank you. Thank you. I...have been asked here today to inspire you, you brilliant young minds of the Empire. I will not be long, for I can already see in your faces the same hunger I graduated with myself - the desire to change the world into your will. So I will say to you what I wish someone had said to me, so many cycles ago: Remember that it is the will of the Empire that matters most of all. I have seen many a brilliant mind falter and flicker out because it bent towards self-gratification and success. Smallness. Let neither ego nor ignorance blind you: what is good for the Empire, is good for us all. I myself would be nothing more than than a simple speck if the Empire had not found good use for me. So let the Empire use you, fellow students - and I promise that each of you will go on to do great things for all of us. Thank you.

 

* * *

  
  
I, yes, well--I do not have anything prepared. Is that all right? Ha ha. Well, I hope you all will forgive me...my appearance. Lyra is still at the conference, and she took my fashion sense with her. Ha ha.  
  
So, then. The question. What have I learnt? I was actually just...thinking about this the other day, if...you-can-believe-it, yes, I have come to the realisation...that I have learnt nothing. Of _course,_ without the excellent resources of this Academy, I would have learnt even less than that...ha ha...but yes, I have realised...--actually, I have a question. For each of you.

What is the first thing we learn? This is not a digression. This is the entire point.  
  
The first thing we learn when we enter this field seriously. What is it? _Understand the question_. Do you remember? _Understand_... _the question_. Do any of you understand what it is they are asking us to do? Ha ha, n-o...no, of course not. Ah, well...scientific inquiry is valuable for its own sake, no? Ha ha.

I am fine, Orson...I can sit down on my own.

 

* * *

  
  
I do not think of this as making amends...I do not think either of us can ever truly make amends. This path I have chosen...it has destroyed all I have ever loved in life. It has destroyed the lives of people I do not know, and will never know. And nothing I can do will bring them back. My path is one of destruction, and I will die before I see its end. And I am scared. Of course I am scared, I am terrified! Every day I think...--

But my fear does not matter. Your fear does not matter. Fear is what brought us here...so put it to the side. Think only of the mission. Do not think of the end...do not think of your smallness. Yes, you are just one man...but I was just one man, too. And now I have you.

One is all you need to make it right. To begin...to make it right.

 

 


End file.
